


Housewarming

by Gumby1011



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 00:23:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6031315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gumby1011/pseuds/Gumby1011
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Peridot has just betrayed Yellow Diamond. She's now a rebel to her homeworld, where she'd been considered a loyal servant just weeks ago. Understandably it's taking her some time to come to terms with that. Sounds like she could use a good ol' fashioned distraction!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Housewarming

She was just going to focus on the drill. All she needed to do was focus on the drill. There was no reason to think about anything else, she had decided. There was no reason to think about the fact that she was working against time. No reason to think about how she was probably going to be hunted down and shattered by a Yellow Court assassin for her disrespect even if she _did_ manage to finish the drill in time and save them all and be a hero. There was _certainly_ no reason for her to ponder on reasons why the other clods were doing _anything that wasn’t help them finish the drill so they could save their stupid, beautiful backwater of a world!_

No reason to think about her treachery. No reason to think about her courage. No reason to focus on the objective fact that she could never, _ever_ go home again. No no _no,_ why would Peridot _ever_ need to think about _any_ of that? Nope. She was just going to keep her visor polarized and keep her eyes glued square on her work. Primitive though it may have been, this human thermal metallic fuser was doing a grand job connecting the drill’s pressure armor… Peridot’s eyes narrowed with sudden realization as the tiny flame melted together the metal seams. _We’re going to need heat-proofing._

She made a mental note to point this out to the Pearl. Perhaps she knew a source of heat-resistant minerals nearby.

“Peridoooooot!”

The little green gem deactivated the fuser and looked up, her visor returning to its normal, translucent yellow. She’d know that voice anywhere. Sing-song, perpetually cheerful, and emblematic of her unfortunate slip into illogical madness. “What, Steven?” She looked down from the top rung of the human height assistance construct and saw the hybrid standing at the entrance to the barn. The rest of the Crystal Gems were with him. He was holding _something_ above his head and jumping up and down, grinning like a lunatic. So in other words, he was being Steven. Peridot looked back at the sheets of metal, the latest line of red-hot still fading. Then she looked back at Steven. With a sigh she slowly climbed down from her perch. _Why do we keep taking breaks for inane reasons?_ She couldn’t help but wonder to herself.

Steven didn’t even wait for her, rushing over to the small gem with the mystery item still held aloft. “We all decided to make you presents!”

“Gifts?” Peridot raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t help but look up past Steven, at all of the other gems as they gathered around. “You mean you brought me… _gifts?”_ Peridot… Didn’t know what to think about that, honestly. On one hand, it was a total waste of time. Gifts wouldn’t do any good if they all ended up shattered. But then on the other hand… A bunch of gems had brought _her_ gifts?Her, a simple little peridot?

“Hey, ya don’t need to look so _shocked_ about it Periscope!” Amethyst chuckled as she stepped forward, slapping the little gem on the back.

Peridot only then realized that she was blushing.

Garnet nodded before holding out her gift for the little gem to take. “We figured you could use some housewarming presents. Welcome to the team.”

Reaching out, Peridot took Garnet’s gift. She probably didn’t realize just how awestruck she looked. It was a box wrapped in an odd, waxy type of that human data sheet material. There were stars printed all over it. She shot Pearl a look. “And you were _okay_ with this?”

“Well…” Pearl smiled as she sat down. “We _are_ ahead of schedule on the drill.”

Peridot opened her mouth to say something about heat proofing. Then she thought better of it. “Fair enough!” She piped as she started pulling the paper apart, her curiosity getting the better of her. It took but a moment for her to shed the papery wrapping, and she just kept going from there- the box itself was brown and nondescript. Then she saw what has inside the box. A hand rose to her mouth. “This is…” what she saw was green. It was made of homeworld metal. It was _astoundingly_ familiar to her. Peridot tore the box apart in an elated frenzy to reveal a limb-enhancer. One for a left leg, to be precise. Her eyes shone with wonder as she ran a hand over it. Garnet had used the same foot. The lower portion was even the same foot that Steven had pulled off, all that time ago! Everything above that- well, it wasn’t _perfect,_ but it was the right shape and the earth-metal had been painted the right color. Besides, she was too dumbfounded to complain at the sight of the star. There was a little yellow star that extended over the top, like a knee-guard. It looked like it would cover the yellow diamond on Peridot’s appearance enhancers.

“Well? What do you think of it?” came Garnet’s playful question. It had to be playful. After all, there was no way she could be seriously asking the question- Peridot was clinging to the leg like it was a stuffed animal.

“Itsitsitsitsitsitsitsitsits-” Peridot was honestly overwhelmed. She was just a _peridot._ She shouldn’t even be important enough to _warrant_ gifts, but this… She shakily gasped more air into her lungs as it suddenly hit her. There were exactly three more presents to open. “It’s _perfect…”_ she whispered, more to herself than for Garnet’s benefit. She threw herself back, landing sitting on the ground, hastily fitting the limb enhancer in place.

“Kinda jumping the gun, aren’tcha?” Amethyst laughed before sitting down next to Peridot. “Guess I’m next then.” She held out her box- it was a messy thing, the wrapping was wrinkled and already torn in places. 

Not that that mattered, mind you- Amethyst may as well have tossed the box into a woodchipper. Tiny green hands rended paper and cardboard alike asunder, eyes alight with desperate desire and unbridled anticipation. The right leg didn’t look as well made as the left leg. There were bolts of various sizes sticking out along the leg, the green paint was patchy, the star was asymmetrical, and _Peridot simply didn’t care._ She immediately slipped into the right leg and stood up. She was back. She was back to her old height! _She was taller than Steven again!_

She raised her now-comically-disproportionate arms above her head in triumph. _“Nyeeeeh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh!”_ The nasally, jubilant cackle echoed through the barn and out onto the farmyard outside. Greg could hear it from his van.

“Mine next, do mine next!” Steven held his gift up to Peridot, and the green gem looked down with a beaming grin on her face.

“Wow, thanks!” The gem chirped automatically- huh. Earth customs were becoming automatic. Funny, that. It was a quick thought, but it was enough for Peridot to lose her balance atop her stilted enhancers with no real arm-mass to compensate. “BWAH!”

“Woah!” Steven reflexively reached to catch her, but with the box in his hand he just kind of ended up awkwardly pushing her back upright. The box was clutched firmly in her hands.

“Victory!” Peridot cried out to no one in particular as she pulled the box apart. Not that the box even mattered, she wanted her _arms back!_ “Ohhhhhh,” delighted eyes scanned the left arm as she just held it her hands a moment, taken aback. It wasn’t the quite the same. It wasn’t anywhere nearly as advanced as homeworld tech. For starters, it had a hand. An _entire_ hand, palms and all. The fingers were slightly slimmer than the ones on her old unit, and of course purely mechanical. Even the other _gems_ on this world didn’t have a clue as to what a gravitational levitator field was, let alone how to make one. Making one small enough to operate fingers was objectively impossible with available tech. A sudden thought occurred to Peridot, and she glanced first at Steven, then at Pearl (still holding the last box, beautifully wrapped and topped with a probably-excessive bow.) There was no _way_ he’d made this on his own. She’d probably helped, and to be honest Peridot could appreciate that.

The tiny gem slipped the enhancer on and gave her fingers an experimental flex. Then she rolled her new, mechanical wrist around, and it was _perfect!_ It didn’t catch, it didn’t stick, it duplicated a normal range of motion _flawlessly!_ Then Peridot noticed a couple things set into the inside of her new forearm- _hold, on, is that?_ It totally was. Peridot’s mouth hung agape as she brought a tiny finger to the play button. Primitive human data tape rolled.

 _“Log date, Seven One-Eight Two. Progress on the Cluster Drill remains steady, and ahead of sche-”_ Peridot pressed the stop button and smiled. They’d set her audio recorder into her arm! The controls and tape-window peeked out from behind matte green paint, and… what was that, set into her arm next to it? She tapped the small, black screen, and it came to life. It opened up to a menu with various icons with human glyphs labelling them. Wait, wasn’t this one of those human computation engine mobile communicator hybrids?”

“It’s probably not gonna be quite as good as your old arm’s screen…” Steven shrugged up at Peridot. “But we gave you my old phone. It’s got a tiny computer, and a couple of suuuper fun games on it!”

“Oh, that’s nice!” Peridot smiled at the little screen, poking and swiping at it experimentally. “Huh… what’s this one?” He bent down and turned her arm at Steven, pointing at what looked like a planetary map with a grid over it.

“That’s the internet!” Steven smiled excitedly. “It’s like a library, but for the whole planet that you can fit in your pocket!”

Peridot’s eyes went wide with wonder, her voice gone shaky with anticipation. “ _Aaaaaarchiiiives!_ How far do they go back?”

“About… Twenty years?” the hybrid couldn’t help but shrug.

The tiny green gem couldn’t help but pout a little bit. “Well, shouldn’t take that long to read them all.” Neither her nor Steven noticed the worried looks the other three gems shared.

“Well, um…” Pearl stepped forward, the present in her hands an afterthought to the now urgent need to protect the poor little gem’s already fragile, recovering mind. “Not allof those… _archives_ are totally relevant. I’ll try and show you around.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be fine after I find the main directory.” Peridot waved her hand at the skinny gem before taking the elegantly-wrapped box from her. To be honest it was kind of awkward, holding the box with two mismatched arms. After about a minute of fumbling the little gem grabbed the box with her left, augmented arm and tore off the paper with the other one. The general build of the right arm enhancer was about identical to the left one, sans the recorder and “phone.” She simply supposed it made sense that Pearl would have made both arms. They _were_ awfully intricate, after all. Peridot slipped her hand into the enhance, flexed her fingers- and then she felt it. “No. No, you _couldn’t have-”_ Peridot looked over at Pearl. “How did you-” If smiles could _actually_ shine, the green technician would have blinded her adopted team then and there.

She ran out between them, bolting for the barnyard. “We got a runner!” Amethyst called playfully, following Peridot with the rest of the Crystal Gems trailing behind. Pearl had a strange look of worried pride on her face.

Peridot nearly tripped over her new legs as she got outside- they’d need a bit of balancing later, she guessed- but now her mind was focussed elsewhere! She made that familiar gesture with her right hand, and the limb enhancer split into its proper configuration: The thumb slid onto the middle of her disk-shaped palm, and all four of her artificial fingers rotated to right angles from each other. With a look of vicious glee, she pointed her arm in the sky, and it started charging up.

Garnet, Steven and Amethyst all stopped dead in their tracks at the sight. Garnet even shot Pearl an unreadable look. “What did you _do?”_

_“NYEEEEEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEEEEH!”_

The cackle this time woke up Greg from his afternoon nap with a start, just in time to stare up in shock at the blast of green light shooting up from the barnyard. “What the _hey?”_ he gasped to himself.

Peridot lowered her arm as the still-smoking blaster turned back into a hand, which she then promptly pumped “I’m _back!”_ She shouted it out to her team. She shouted it out to no one. She shouted it out to the entirety of the Yellow Court of the Authority. “Peridot’s _back!_ Nyeh-heh- _heh!”_ She stopped laughing just in time to hear her arm speak in a tiny digital voice that may or may not have been a recording of Pearl (It was hard to tell through the distortion).

“Warning. Power levels at fifty percent.”

Ripped out of her thoughts, the technician glanced at the arm, brought it up to her eyes and gave it a good look. “Huh.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Pearl offered as she walked up to Peridot. “That’s the one problem, human batteries can hardly keep their _phones_ running, let alone a blast- _hurk!”_ The skinny gem was interrupted by Peridot lifting her off her feet in a rib-creaking, back-popping, teary-cheeked hug. And true to form, the rest of the Crystal Gems wasted no time joining in.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another silly little contribution of mine for International Fan Works Day! Here's hoping y'all enjoyed it!


End file.
